2 Cameras, 1 Shoots, duplicate file names....

Raymond Lin

Raymond Lin

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So I just did a wedding and in the process of putting the files into my computer and then into Lightroom subsequently...

Before that I have hit a snag. I used Two 5Dii for the wedding and my first 5Dii had hit 10,000 shots already so it went back to being 0000 again in the image count. The new 5Dii started at 0000 anyway and that's where the problem is, I can't put them into the same folder for storage, normally I just call it "Bride & Groom Name RAW" and then out put the processed images into another folder and I never touch that RAW folder.

I can get around this by putting them in to 2 separate RAW Folders, but how do I create 1 single collection/folder in Lightroom? As I planned to sort them by time shot in Lightroom so the entire wedding goes in a sequence.

Help anyone?
 
on import in lightroom/photomechanic, set up the preset to be a file rename and have either an import sequence, or custom text, where you can enter 'c1' 'c2' etc.

see dpbestflow.com for a lot of very, very good free workflow advice at the very highest level. good stuff.
 
If you use LR to import from the card/camera into a single folder it should automaticly rename any duplicates by adding a _1 to the file name.

Alternativly on import set your file renaming to include the hour, minute and seconds at the end of the file name this will ensure that they are all different and sorted in the order taken. ;)
 
Use a custom filename in LR2 or LR3. Import the first batch using a name format including a numeric sequence, then find out what the number of the last file imported was, then commence the next import with the sequence starting at whatever the number of the last file was +1.

You'll then have a folder of files correctly sequenced numerically.
 
Maybe a bit late for this, but don't forget you can customise how the camera names the files. So you could use one prefix for camera one and another for camera two. You aren't confined to the IMG or _MG prefixes
 
Chappers said:
Maybe a bit late for this, but don't forget you can customise how the camera names the files. So you could use one prefix for camera one and another for camera two. You aren't confined to the IMG or _MG prefixes
Click to expand...

Thats a bit too late now but i will do for this weekend's shoot.

However, what would be the best wy of importanting these 2 folders into LR but keep them in a same "folder" whilst in LR?
 
theMusicMan said:
Use a custom filename in LR2 or LR3. Import the first batch using a name format including a numeric sequence, then find out what the number of the last file imported was, then commence the next import with the sequence starting at whatever the number of the last file was +1.

You'll then have a folder of files correctly sequenced numerically.
Click to expand...

So LR can rename the file when importing from Disk? and it will edit the name of the original file in the HD too?
 
The way I would do it is to import each camera files into separate folders, within Lightroom. I would then use the rename function, probably using the same name but changing the numbering sequence. e.g. First camera is numbered from 001. The next folder from say 501 ( depends on the number of images in the first folder). Then simply combine the folders.
 
Raymond Lin said:
So LR can rename the file when importing from Disk? and it will edit the name of the original file in the HD too?
Click to expand...

yes, it can. Just select 'move to location' and it renames the files and moves them.

Chappers, that's not good, a lightroom workflow revolves around never actually working with the files in explorer/finder, and working solely at a lightroom level. You could do it, and it would work, but you'd need to reconnect to the files once you'd moved them, and mistakes could mess up the whole workflow. Again, dpbestflow :)
 
All these action are done in Lightroom. You import the images into two separate destination folders within LR. You then use LR rename function to rename and renumber, with different number sequences for each folder. Then you simply move ( using LR to do the move) the contents of one folder to another, and delete the empty one.
 
I have LR rename my files into the format YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_FILENUM, where FILENUM is the image number recorded by the camera. In this way I can preserve the correct shot sequence even when firing off 10 FPS with my 1D3. Without the FILENUM suffix I have found it to be random pot luck how shots are sorted within each individual second. That's not good enough.

This technique allows me to interleave shots into chronological order from any number of cameras, and still avoid the problem of duplicate filenames. Of course, it helps no end to have the date and time of each camera body set accurately and synchronised before starting a shoot.
 
Now, where is the bit in the menu in the 5Dii to change file number prefix??? For the life of me i can't find it :/
 
I thought the 5D ll had a similar menu to the Id series. However if the ability to change the name is not there, you could set one camera to use Adobe RGB as it's preferred colour space and the other to sRGB. As you are shooting RAW it makes no difference to the RAW file, but the file prefix changes. _MG for Adobe RGB and IMG for sRGB
 
Chappers said:
I thought the 5D ll had a similar menu to the Id series. However if the ability to change the name is not there, you could set one camera to use Adobe RGB as it's preferred colour space and the other to sRGB. As you are shooting RAW it makes no difference to the RAW file, but the file prefix changes. _MG for Adobe RGB and IMG for sRGB
Click to expand...

I recently got a 2nd hand 5d Mk1 as a backup and that one is using '_MG' file prefix, but I din't know until now! So there's no harm in using the different colour space then? Quite handy if that's the case.
 
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